Regionalization Equals Resilience, But OEMs Need More Data About North American EMS Capabilities

Having a robust electronics manufacturing ecosystem in each geographic region will not happen without serious effort. The first step is gaining visibility for the EMS companies that are already up and running in each region. That data is already available in Europe. Now is the time for North American EMS to come out of the shadows.

Supply chain managers in many industries including electronics manufacturing are re-configuring their global sourcing strategies to build products closer to their end customers. One way to achieve resilience is by shortening the chain. In theory, it has always made sense, but manufacturing in China was just too easy. The component ecosystem, the trained workers, the logistics support network will be difficult to reproduce in other geographies. Now that the China advantage is looking more fragile, the regionalization trend is accelerating.  Building a robust regional semiconductor manufacturing capability has become of national importance for defense, for sustainability, heck, to save Christmas. Now is the time to have a serious discussion about how to ensure that each region has an electronics manufacturing ecosystem.

The EMS industry is the key to a successful regional strategy. That means the EMS industry in each region needs to become more visible. Not just the Tier 1, but the entire range of manufacturers. OEMs need to know what’s available and precisely where they are located. That’s why EMSNOW and IPC have teamed up to compile this data and make it available – at no charge – to the OEM community and the industry at large. We have gotten a good response so far, but we need much broader participation. Dieter Weiss with his team at in4ma has done the work in Europe. That’s how he is able to generate the insights he brings to that geography. Now it’s time for the estimated 1400 North America EMS companies to come out of the shadows. Not just the Top 50, but all of them.

We are not asking for you to divulge any secrets. We just want to know who you are and what you can do for your customers. This 5-minute survey is all it will take.

Building products in the region for the region is a strategy that has always made more sense for the health of the planet, the local economies, and to ensure resilience during the inevitable disruptions of global business. To do that, each region will need strong EMS companies of all sizes. To support this we need to identify as many of the EMS companies in North America as possible.

Here’s some preliminary data from those who have already filled out the form. When we get more representative survey participation we will provide a list of those that want to be on one. Again, it will be offered without charge to the industry.

COMPLETE The North American EMS Survey NOW

 

North American EMS Survey – Interim Report

 

This question reflects the percentage of manufacturing facilities the respondent companies have in N America.

This is an interesting data set and seems to reflect that there are more smaller EMS in Canada and USA while there are probably larger but fewer facilities in Mexico. We do not have much data yet from the larger EMS so their input will be important to include.

 

While the EMS industry in N America covers all industry sectors, the Industrial, Medical, Communications and Mil/Aero sectors are the most prominent ones for our respondents.

 

The majority of our respondents are in the smaller tiers under $100M.  This is good in that these are exactly the types of companies we hoped to involve and elevate in this research, but we still need to get more participation from the larger tier players who probably constitute the majority of the industry in N America.